Uninvited
by Indigo Ziona
Summary: A mischievious fairy takes a practical joke too far.


Uninvited  
  
In light of certain rumours about me, I have decided to write about the events occurring in Flootania as a result of magic. Being a fairy (and therefore immortal) and allegedly the root cause of all these events, I think it's right that I tell them in my own words.  
  
I suppose I wasn't all that surprised that the Queen and King of Flootania didn't want me around for Princess Bluebell's christening on October 31st. After all, every monarch who's ever invited me to a royal event has been left a little shaken, apart, that is, from the teenaged King Hawkus of Andir, who invited me to every single party he had since.  
  
Word gets around. Of course most of them still send me an invitation, as they don't want to offend me. Offending a fairy is a very bad business, especially if she is in a mood. But Queen Lulu and her husband were only starting out, and they were young and inexperienced.  
  
Mind you, even some of the ones who've been shaken have invited me back in good spirit. You see, I'm simply the best practical joker ever, and I was blessed with being born a fairy (pixie, nymph, etc.).  
  
There's no end to jokes you can pull with the help of magic, and being perhaps a little raucous for an elf, I carried out as many as I could. Anyway, Lulu and her husband, whose name I cannot remember, were the quiet, mousy sort, and I'd even been planning to behave at Bluebell's christening so I could give her "the gift of giggling in secret places" or something. But I never got the chance!  
  
I wouldn't have minded so much, except everyone was talking about it. Fairy Heartthrob, who shares my grove, just couldn't stop talking about how good it would be to get back to old magic, you know, everlasting beauty, talent for music, being able to talk to small animals. In the end I snapped at her, mainly because I was deeply jealous, but also because no fairy has ever thought of giving a baby princess intelligence. Princes at least get wisdom, justice and so on, but even they sounded deadly boring to me, especially compared with the gift of a fantastic sense of humour.  
  
The last straw had to be when Fairy Dewdrop, head of the Fairy Godmother Union, decided to call a meeting to discuss presents. Every single registered fairy godmother knew of course, except for me. As everyone was heading for Dewdrop's cavern, I followed the crowd.  
  
After some whispering and pointing at me, I finally grabbed Fairy Twinkletoes, the most frivolous of the lot and said, "What's going on?"  
  
"It's a Godmother meeting."  
  
"I wasn't told."  
  
"It's... it's to discuss presents for Princess Bluebell," said Twinkletoes. "So we don't give her the same thing."  
  
That did it. Not even being given a letter of apology from my own union to say why I wasn't invited to an obviously important meaning, and all because of that blasted Queen Lulu, I was ready to burst from anger.  
  
I'd already decided I would turn up anyway, all smiles and bright eyes, and tell them I was sure it was just a mistake. But now I formed a plan for the ultimate scare. They'd be sorry they'd ever planned to have a christening on Halloween.  
  
As the Union prepared to travel to Flootania, I pretended to be tired, and stayed up in my favourite tree until they had all gone. Heartthrob spent ages getting ready, as did Fairy Holly, whose grove is just next to mine. To make things worse, Heartthrob kept calling up to make sure I was all right, and I wished she'd just stop. Finally she called up, "Ash, I'm leaving now."  
  
My full name, which only Dewdrop and the fairy council ever call me, is Fairy Ashtree.  
  
"Oh, Ash," Holly called up. "I don't suppose you have any more of that peach champagne you made last summer?"  
  
I sighed, and the roots of the ash opened to reveal a bottle. "Thanks," Holly said.  
  
I spent five minutes finding my black cloak, and with a bit of gel and some make-up, I looked just right. I could have shape-shifted a bit, but that's a bit of a drag to maintain. I spent quite a time searching out all the ugly gnomes and dwarfs I could find, and a crow who liked sitting in my favourite ash. Most of them weren't bored. They were already preparing Halloween scares, and were perfectly happy except for one thing.  
  
"You see, Ash my love," said the eloquently named Sourgut. "There ain't no fairy folk to play tricks on this year."  
  
And that was a disappointment and a half. Some of those fairies were so stuffy and dull it was quite a joy to play tricks on them. Plus, for the gnomes, dwarfs, etc. it was a thrill. Offending a magical being is really tempting fate - as Bluebell's parents were about to find out.  
  
"Don't worry, I have the scare of a lifetime; we get all the fairies and some mortals too." I explained my plan. They all sniggered.  
  
For reasons of my own, I am now ashamed of my eagerness to do what I did that day -- but at the time it seemed like a very good idea.  
  
I arrived just in time to do what I wanted to do -- the fairies giving their gifts. I burst in with a flash of light, that charming crow on my shoulder and all those wonderful forest dwellers as my evil minions. From the look of everyone's faces, they all thought I'd gone from mad to bad, which was exactly what I wanted.  
  
"Hear ye, court of Flootania. I am Ashtree, dark lady of the Enchanted Forest."  
  
There was a hushed silence, the guests were shocked and the fairies were looking at one another with horror.  
  
My voice rang out to the rafters.  
  
"These imbecilic mortals who you call your rulers have humiliated me by rejecting my great presence at this feast. In so doing, they have angered me to the roots of my ashes."  
  
My minions sniggered evilly, and I bent my mouth to a cruel smile, struggling not to laugh at the scene I was causing.  
  
"But I have decided to be gracious, your majesties, and not harm thee (this is grammatically wrong -- I should have said 'harm you' but I've never got the hang of human speech). In fact I have come to give your dear princess a gift."  
  
Pulling out the old and devoid of magic stick I had picked up on the way, I chanted "On the sixth day, after her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and then she shall die!"  
  
I persuaded the clouds to give me a crack of lightning at that point, and I got not only that but thunder. That should have meant I was struck by lightning, but fairies are nearly immortal and so I was fine, my face illuminated as I cackled evil laughter and Bluebell cried.  
  
"Good on you, princess," I thought, and as I turned away, I touched my ash wand and gave her the gift of feminine independence.  
  
"Why that?" the crow asked a little later on.  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why feminine independence?"  
  
"Oh. Well look at Queen Lulu. She's the sovereign of Flootania, the one and only heir of King Santelty. But now her husband rules the place. I want Bluebell to be a pretty strong ruler when she ascends the throne, for her own good."  
  
"Sounds like a funny human idea to me."  
  
"No -- actually it's a funny fairy idea. You've never met a male fairy with high status, have you?"  
  
(He hadn't, but I had, mainly because I spent all of my younger days serving Oberon, King of the Fairies.)  
  
"Sounds like you have the opposite problem to these soft-brained creatures," the crow squawked. Crows don't have problems, mainly because they don't have to meddle with politics.  
  
"Well, yes. But the Fairy Godmother Union is becoming the Fairy Godparent Union next month anyway. The Board for Equal Rights has insisted on it."  
  
"And what do you think?"  
  
"I think good on them. A female fairy can never work out what to give a prince. It's a job a male would be a useful addition to." Then a thought hit me. "How did you learn to talk?"  
  
"How did you learn?"  
  
"I've always known."  
  
"Same here."  
  
I smiled triumphantly. "Thought so. King Hawkus always believed it was my magical influence."  
  
The crow snorted. "That's absolutely ridiculous."  
  
"Well, you must excuse him. No bird has ever spoken to him."  
  
"It's because we don't want to talk to him. Humans have funny ideas about talking crows. They say we're a bad omen."  
  
"I don't think Hawkus believes that."  
  
"You can never be too careful."  
  
We skipped the globe with agility, fuelled by my fairy briskness. Such a large team would be impossible to move back in a single moment, so we darted through, a glimpse in the corner of everyone's eyes. Back at the Enchanted forest, my friends and I drank wine all night and celebrated the best Halloween ever.  
  
When the sun rose the next morning, the forest was surprisingly quiet. No one called up the tree, or sang in the dawn light, or whistled as they drifted about the forest. The only time I could remember it being really quiet was when we overthrew Oberon and Titania for meddling with mortals (an ironic charge, as most of us do it all the time, but the head of the fairy council at that time had no sense of humour). The reason, I supposed, was they were being cold to me after last night's escapade. Mind you, Heartthrob wasn't known to hold grudges, even for a few hours.  
  
I came down to find an egg at the bottom of the tree. In picking it up, it cracked in my hands, and instead of a tiny bird, a mist rose out, and made the shape of a person before me. This was spirit sent from Fairy Dewdrop.  
  
"Fairy Ashtree, your presence is requested by Dewdrop, daughter of Crystal, and the chair of the Fairy Godmother Union."  
  
The FGU was going to tell me off. It seemed a little melodramatic to send a spirit to tell me though.  
  
"Why is my presence required, spirit?"  
  
"Fairy Dewdrop requires your presence in relation to your recent turn to wickedness and your curse on the mortal princess."  
  
Oh surely this was a joke. They couldn't seriously have believed me -- could they?  
  
I hurried to Dewdrop's cavern, finding the rest of the FGU already seated. As I walked in, they hushed their talk and looked at me. I had since changed from my black cloak and now I was wearing a wreath of flowers, a floating white dress and assorted beads, and my feet were bare.  
  
"Fairy Ashtree," Dewdrop intoned. "In light of your behaviour last night, we call you here for an explanation as to your turn to evil and, with the aid of certain dark minions, the way in which you cursed an innocent child."  
  
I spluttered. "This isn't right! I wasn't even invited. That time two hundred years ago when King Dassal missed you out on his great coronation guest list despite the fairies coming constantly to his aid, you gave him chronic backache for the rest of his life."  
  
Several jaws fell open, and Dewdrop flushed with anger. "I hardly think that compares to condemning a child to death!"  
  
"But... but I didn't condemn Bluebell to death."  
  
"Fairy Ashtree, are we to believe that it was not you who proclaimed yourself 'Fairy Ashtree, Dark lady of the Enchanted Forest'?"  
  
"Oh it was me all right, but 'dark lady'? Since when have I ever been a dark lady?"  
  
"We had no evidence of your wickedness until last night."  
  
They were all sitting there, deadly serious. I wondered whether they were whipping the whole story up to scare me into believing the Fairy Council was going to banish me, in revenge for scaring them all the night before.  
  
I smiled demurely. "Why, Dewdrop, you know what I'm like at Halloween. I wouldn't dream of giving a child a curse of death. If I'd been really angry I would have given her chronic acne, but it's hardly her fault."  
  
"What are you saying, Ashtree?" Dewdrop demanded, sounding alarmed.  
  
"That old stick wasn't really a wand. And those dark minions were just the gnomes and dwarfs and things who live in the Enchanted Forest. They've always been my friends."  
  
"She's been in league with them from the start!" Twinkletoes pronounced.  
  
"They're my friends," I repeated. "They're not evil. I thought up the whole dark minions idea. I thought it would make it more convincing. I gave Bluebell my real gift with the ash wand. Why don't you check the magic record?"  
  
Perplexed, Dewdrop pulled out the self-writing, magic-sensitive scroll, and read the list of spells.  
  
"Gift of Charm. Gift of Love. Gift of Music. Gift of Wit. Unsusceptibility to alcohol -- who cast that?"  
  
Fairy Holly blushed. "It was me. I was so enjoying that peach champagne."  
  
Dewdrop continued.  
  
"Gift of Demureness."  
  
I winced.  
  
"Gift of Truth. Gift of Loyalty. Gift of Trust. Gift of Purity. Gift of Sexual Magnetism -- I don't remember that one," Dewdrop said, eyeing me.  
  
"Don't look at me," I complained. "That is just not my style. Since when have I myself made any attempt to be sexually magnetic, and why would I want a princess to have a gift like that?"  
  
Dewdrop glared around at the company, until finally Fairy Heartthrob said, "All right, I did it."  
  
"You gave her the Gift of Love, Fairy Heartthrob. Have you broken the rules by giving more than one gift?"  
  
"Actually, no," Heartthrob said. "I cast that one on myself."  
  
I couldn't help smiling.  
  
"And finally, Gift of Understanding of Small Animals, Gift of Feminine Independence?"  
  
"That was me," I said.  
  
"And the Gift of a Century's Sleep in Place of a Certain Death by the Pricking of the Finger on a Spindle, Ceased by the Kiss of a True Blood Royal Prince."  
  
"What?" I demanded. "She's going to sleep for a hundred years six days after her sixteenth birthday?"  
  
The group were stuck silent.  
  
"How could you be so ridiculous? I gave the princess my gift. I can't reverse that!"  
  
"In any case, it's against the rules," Dewdrop said. "No fairy can reverse another fairy's gift."  
  
"But I could have given her the Gift of Never Touching A Spindle." This, of course, is something the rest of them hadn't thought of in casting their 'sleep for a hundred years' spell.  
  
"Fairy Ashtree, because of your frivolous behaviour, a blunder has been made. You will have to prevent Bluebell's fate, somehow..."  
  
"With respect, Fairy Dewdrop, if you had checked the seriousness of the spell, and also realised that I wouldn't have given her 'Gift of Dying Six Days After Your Sixteenth Birthday' because it doesn't exist, you could have given her a real gift. I would have given her no gift, so therefore my spell could have been reversed."  
  
"Fairies," Fairy Sequoia interrupted. "We are wasting time arguing over petty things. Because of Ash's respect of the night of All Hallow's Eve, Mortal foolishness and our own lack of thought, a life is at stake."  
  
Sequoia was completely right. Once we'd gotten over all the disgusting details (such as whether Bluebell's body actually age while she was asleep, need I say more?) Fairy Willow suggested a number of precautions.  
  
Fairy Willow was a whimsical fairy who usually gave the Gift of Beauty, but instead she had had to counter my supposed spell.  
  
Precaution number 1: Destroy all spinning-wheels.  
  
This proved to be a lot of trouble, as banning a domestic service can practically collapse an economy.  
  
Eventually we fairies eventually persuaded every spinner to move to a selected enclosed area. Being fairies, our persuasion was fairly direct.  
  
Precaution number 2: Keep a watch on the princess at all times.  
  
This was fairly easy. We paid off plenty of servants, and of course infiltrated in ourselves.  
  
Precaution number 3: Persuade the Queen and King to ban the usage of certain sedatives.  
  
Exact cause and effect of the completion of the spell were pretty uncertain, but Willow thought that it was probably a destiny-affecting spell, meaning some assassin would offer the princess a spinning wheel coated with the most powerful sedative there is, in the most concentrated solution imaginable. Princesses being funny things, it wouldn't actually kill Bluebell but she would sleep for a century. Also because of strange princessly things, as indicated in the Gartenier Pea Principle, the only thing that would wake this sensitive girl would be the kiss of a prince. Presumably it didn't necessarily have to be a prince, but he was the only one with romantic enough notions to kiss a sleeping woman.  
  
Partly as a punishment for my Halloween wind-up, I was delegated to become Bluebell's nurse. They did this mainly because I can't have any fun with a baby, and it would 'keep me out of trouble', to use Dewdrop's charming phrase, whilst the others kept a check on assassins and spinning wheels and suchlike. I disguised myself as a human woman, and with a little charm and a lot of magical cheating, I immediately got the job.  
  
Bluebell was a regular little brat, and I soon began to wish I'd never given her the gift I had. As a little girl, she was all the fairies had intended her to be – although not very beautiful. She didn't look like either of her parents, either, with ginger – not red – hair and the pale skin that's so fashionable with royalty.  
  
She had charm, wit, love and so on, she had trust (in fact she was gullible), she could never tell a lie and she was demure. However she seemed to use these particular characteristics to her own ends. Especially being demure – whenever she wanted something she only had to give you a certain look. In fact, I think my gift had been particularly effective – unfortunately for me.  
  
Monarchs at this time had a tradition of every Spring getting together to discuss things, and meet suitors, and so on. Queen Lulu hosted it in the year Bluebell was five, and it seemed clear that the main reason for this was to get down to the subject of marriage. Royalty have particular difficulty in finding partners, mainly because they can only marry nobles. Since the solution to most political problems is marriage, usually the aforesaid noble is royal too, to maintain good relations with other countries. The still unmarried King Hawkus was there, now about twenty and not particularly interested in marriage either. King Sarkison and Queen Reeney were there with their little boy, Panther. And various Princesses who had gone to Hawkus's parties were there, still desperate to become Queen of Andir.  
  
As I had to get Bluebell dressed up for the event, I was rather late in arriving. Bluebell claimed she could express herself in any way she chose, and was not wearing the restricting dress when it would be so much easier to move in trousers (I know that most history books claim that trousers hadn't been invented yet, but they're lying).  
  
"Now, now, Bluebell," I said. "It's a dress, not a corset."  
  
"I'm not wearing it."  
  
"Bluebell," I said warningly. "You have the right to choose whether you wear this dress or have no dinner, destroy your parents' public relations with their neighbours, and learn nothing of the court for when you are queen."  
  
"That's repression," she said defiantly. Then an idea seemed to hit her. "Please nursie, I'll keep in the background. I won't cause any trouble..."  
  
"No. You can be demure some other time. Get this dress on."  
  
As I was struggling along the corridor, dragging the reluctant princess with both hands, King Hawkus came along.  
  
"Oh this would be the lovely Bluebell," he said. "Pleased to meet you, your Highness."  
  
That saved me. Bluebell immediately stood up straight and looked at him.  
  
"And who are you?" she asked regally.  
  
"King Hawkus of Andir, your highness," he said, sweeping a low bow. "I have come to seek a bride to reign at my side in my great kingdom."  
  
"Pull the other one," I muttered just a little too loudly.  
  
Hawkus stared at me with disbelief.  
  
"Ash? Is that really you?"  
  
"No," I said, with a sly smile. "I'm Princess Bluebell's nurse. Her highness and I are on our way to the feasting chamber and you may accompany us."  
  
"You're very regal for a nursemaid."  
  
"You're very common for a king, but I'm not complaining."  
  
And then he knew for absolutely certain it was me.  
  
"Your Royal Highness Princess Bluebell, would you truly honour me with your company?"  
  
"I suppose so," Bluebell said.  
  
As soon as we were out of earshot, Hawkus said, "Ash, how did you get here? I heard that they were banishing you from the whole of Christendom!"  
  
"Halloween prank gone wrong," I explained. He grinned.  
  
"Thought as much. Rumours going around that Ashtree had turned evil? I didn't believe any of them. Wish I'd been there."  
  
"So do I," I said. "They all took me seriously!"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
I explained the Halloween state of affairs. He nodded. "Shame. They didn't invite me either. Of course, I didn't complain. I was too busy having a Halloween party. I wouldn't invite me to a christening." He beamed a wide smile of delight. "Did you give her a gift in the end?"  
  
"Feminine Independence."  
  
"Should have given her intelligence," he said. "If females start realising they can be independent they might forget that some men can't be. With the exception of myself."  
  
"I don't believe you."  
  
"Believe what you will, Lady fairy. When are you free?"  
  
"Almost never. I get a day off every second Saturday to go back to the Enchanted forest and make sure my ashes are all right."  
  
"What a coincidence," Hawkus said. "I just happen to be having another party this coming second Saturday."  
  
"You don't even know what I'm counting as a second Saturday!"  
  
"I do know that my parties have been far too dull lately. Come in a blinding flash of light and it'll be a party enough for me."  
  
What a sweet boy he is. Of course, the fairies wouldn't approve, but they didn't need to know, did they?  
  
I walked into the Great Hall dressed as a serving girl. I eavesdropped on several very dull conversations, involving alliances based around marrying this king's great nephew's cousin to that king's sister-in-law's aunt. Finally, I nabbed some hors d'oeuvres and almost forcibly served them to Hawkus.  
  
"Careful, Ash," he warned. "I'm supposedly looking for a bride. If they see me having a discussion with a servant I'll be sent home for misconduct."  
  
"Claim I look like the daughter of your father's cousin's nephew, whom you once fell in love with, and thought I was in disguise."  
  
"Don't be silly," he told me admonishingly. "That sort of thing never happens."  
  
"It does too."  
  
"And royalty never fall in love with servant girls."  
  
"Now that has happened, and I'll ask Fairy Pumpkin to prove it to you sometime."  
  
In the background, I could see a very bored Princess Bluebell and a very bored Prince Panther being forced on each other's company.  
  
There were plenty of long boring years after that which I can't be bothered to describe. Bluebell grew, and her ginger hair, against her will, grew long, and she gained freckles. She developed a strong friendship with Panther, Sarkison's son.  
  
Oh yes, that's why I was telling you about that meeting thing. Without their knowledge, Panther and Bluebell were betrothed to one another, to produce a long lasting peace between Flootania and Kalanga. I don't know how Sarkison and Lulu were planning to break the news to their respective children, but I personally would have waited until they could somehow trick them both into going up the aisle, and sneakily positioning guards behind their backs before actually letting them know.  
  
Bluebell turned sixteen, and at that time she was awkward, stroppy, zit- covered and practically unbearable. Thankfully for Lulu, she was beginning to like boys, and the union with Panther was practically set in stone.  
  
We watched her carefully. On the sixth day after her birthday, we kept her shut in her bedroom, and told her to stay still. She got bored. So we called in the court jester.  
  
After hearing numerous jokes about one-eyed garlic sellers, we sent him away.  
  
Finally, Bluebell's tutor said he would bring a few things from the museum. That was safe. There were no spinning wheels there, as they'd all been banned. And the tutor would give his life for Bluebell. We'd given him many loyalty checks.  
  
So in he came, and pulled out certain artefacts, which kept Bluebell amused for a bit.  
  
"And this," he said, "is something very rare indeed." And he pulled out his final object.  
  
I didn't recognise it at first, not having much experience over domestic appliances, and finally its name came to me, all too late...  
  
"Weird," Bluebell said. "Ouch!"  
  
The prick was fresh on her finger, and the blood dripped onto the spindle.  
  
Bluebell slept, and the fairies danced around the castle, putting all the others to sleep. Prince Panther, in a daze, gazed at the magical visitors, and I whisked him up – as myself, not Bluebell's nurse – to see where Bluebell was sleeping.  
  
"Kiss her," I ordered.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Panther, did anyone ever tell you that questioning a fairy is a very bad idea? Do as I say, or be cast inside an ash tree or something."  
  
Very tentatively, he did so.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
"What was supposed to happen?"  
  
I told him about the spells gone wrong, and precautions gone wrong.  
  
"But weren't spindles banned?"  
  
"No. Only spinning wheels. Kiss her again."  
  
He did so. Nothing happened. He tried a third time. Bored, I cast him into century-long sleep.  
  
We floated around, casting the castle into stillness. Fairy Ivy enshrouded the castle with leaves, and we left.  
  
Hawkus grew old, but I must confess I endorsed a little fairy tradition before he did so. Fairies are usually apt to occasionally marry mortals, and I liked this particular tradition. At least as far as Hawkus was concerned. He had strange, almost-pixie like thinking. So I married him, so I could protect his line -- and, well, even I can fall in love sometimes.  
  
And of course, we had children. They were lovely, and it pained me to think they would die long before I would. But that was a peaceful hundred years, and I had many beautiful ballads written about me, and my legend spread far and wide as "the fairy queen". I liked that. It put a stop to all those rumours about Bluebell's christening that had been clinging to me.  
  
Flootania coped well throughout the slumber of her rulers, and the tourist board took over. This was because no-one was paying any taxes, and the tourist board was making excess profits from the vile and degrading exhibition of "The Sleeping Beauty". And what a load of rubbish that was. However, ironically, it actually did better whilst it was a republic.  
  
Contrary to popular belief, Panther did not fight through the branches tangling the castle with nothing but a sword and a bottle of weedkiller. If he had, it would have been a waste of time, as they had already broken a path through for tourists. Actually he was still asleep on the floor in Bluebell's bedroom, so when he woke up, his first thought probably was "What was I doing? Oh, kissing Bluebell."  
  
So he tried again, and then she awoke. And her first thought was probably, "Yuck."  
  
"What?"  
  
"What have you been eating?"  
  
"Nothing much."  
  
"Eurgh, wash your mouth out a bit!"  
  
In this little paragraph I'd just like to mention the sheer magical field we had to maintain to keep that going. Bluebell was all right, because she had to sleep for one hundred years, whether it was physically possible or not. Keeping the rest of them from ageing or dying of malnutrition was a lot of effort. And if the tourist board hadn't decided to exploit it a bit, we would have had to keep a check on the sanitation and made that surrounding forest even deeper to prevent squatters. What's more, we had to stop everyone's hair and fingernails from growing. And the thing in the oven couldn't burn, or rot, or anything, and the fire couldn't go out. It had to be just perfect for when Panther woke the princess up. Notice I didn't say "his" princess, as many ballad writers have insisted on. I don't personally believe she belonged to any mortal.  
  
So we went to the official waking-up ceremony of the castle, which was all very nice, with lots of fireworks and withering ivy, and bluebirds flying all over the place. My crow friend wanted to come but he would have been considered a bad omen. What is it people have with crows?  
  
And, despite treating Bluebell like a four year old before her hundred year sleep, suddenly everyone became eager to see her marry Panther. Panther's fairy godfather was already writing up the present list for the wedding.  
  
"I'm not marrying Panther," Bluebell said. "He's practically my brother."  
  
All the court sighed.  
  
"But dear," Queen Lulu pleaded. "He awoke you from a century long sleep."  
  
"With bad breath," Bluebell pointed out. "I'm very grateful, but that's hardly grounds for marriage."  
  
"What happened to demureness?" Lulu lamented. "I thought it was a gift from your fairy godmothers."  
  
"You can use gifts whenever you want," Bluebell said. "But you don't have to use them."  
  
"Too true," I said, appearing in a flash of light.  
  
"Nurse?" Bluebell asked, bewildered.  
  
"Who are you?" Lulu asked.  
  
I love getting reactions. I didn't even have to play a trick this time.  
  
"I'm Bluebell's twelfth fairy godmother."  
  
They stared at each other. I mean, not just Bluebell and Lulu, but the entire court stared at each other.  
  
"Bluebell only had eleven fairy godmothers," her father pointed out. "We only invited eleven."  
  
He counted them off on his fingers.  
  
"Fairy Ashtree," I said, extending a hand.  
  
They shrank away. All the older ones remembered my name too well.  
  
"Isn't she the one that...?" Bluebell started.  
  
"Don't be scared – there are a lot of ash trees you know."  
  
"You mean, you're not the same Ashtree?"  
  
I didn't answer that. I just wanted them to think what they wanted to think.  
  
"Why would someone bent on destroying this princess raise her through infancy?" I asked.  
  
It was a fair point.  
  
"I don't remember meeting you – I mean, as a fairy," Lulu said.  
  
"If I can't come to a Christening due to a prior arrangement, I usually send my gift along with someone else. It was Halloween, and I imagine that your reluctance to invite me was now to my rather relaxed nature and lack of formality I am famed for, especially at Halloween. I'm afraid that I have a little trouble understanding mortals and their regard for formality. When you are immortal, you tend to look at the world differently."  
  
This was a fairly true and almost Dewdrop-esque speech and it impressed them. Notice I never lied once.  
  
"And your gift was...?"  
  
"Guess."  
  
Sometimes I love humans.  
  
"Freckles," said the besotted Panther sometime later. "Definitely freckles. They're so beautiful."  
  
I quite like freckles, too. Bluebell had endeared them to me.  
  
"No," I said. "They're natural."  
  
Panther looked pleased as anything that Bluebell was naturally freckled and ginger. It wasn't quite beautiful, but it did have a nice effect, I'll agree with that.  
  
None of them guessed what Bluebell's gift was – well not until much later on. Bluebell worked it out herself during a sleepless night. She never told anyone else.  
  
As a matter of fact, my gift was the one she used most, I think. She never did marry Panther, or anyone for that matter, and she ruled well when she became queen. (Later on, historians claimed she had married him, and they were heirless. The ballad of Blueball's three sons and their tragic death is a complete load of codswallop and I advise you not to pay any minstrel who sings it.)  
  
Incidentally, seeing as this account was mostly to do away with certain rumours that have been hounding me for the past few centuries, I'd like to add a note here. Whilst we tended to everyone else's hair and nails, we actually left Bluebell completely alone. She chewed off the nails in her sleep (a bad habit of hers) and her hair grew to massive length. She didn't cut it right away, and several witnesses saw her with her hair hanging out of the tower, and later on, as an experiment she chopped it off and made a rope for Panther to climb up. Seeing as Bluebell had been known to have been kept inside due to spinning wheels, etc., and also being a so- called victim of evil magic, a story grew up around this. It's completely falsified. This supposed Kalangan story is actually pure Flootanian in origin.  
  
I'm glad Bluebell and Panther didn't marry. Their friendship really wouldn't have worked under those circumstances. I'm also glad it was he who kissed her. There's nothing worse than waking up from a long peaceful sleep all due to a kiss from a perfect stranger who for some reason has fallen deeply in love for you. I don't think it's based on your intelligence, somehow (or in Bluebell's case, beauty wasn't actually an issue either).  
  
Plenty of people have fallen for the one-kiss-and-we're-married scenario. That servant girl Pumpkin helped has just come out of a rather messy divorce (although she did get half the king's money and custody of the children). Another girl I met some years ago was so stupid she also fell for the old-woman-selling-apples trick. And her stepmother fell for the trick mirror and the pig's heart. Or was it a lamb's heart? Or something else?  
  
And worst of all, one of my cousins, a type of sea dwelling fairy, fell for the save-him-and-he's-yours-even-if-you-can't-talk scenario. I only know of one girl, who, where magic was involved, actually worked out what she was doing. This is another situation that has been pinned on me for a while -- everyone blamed an 'evil fairy' from turning a prince into a hideous beast, reversible only by the love of a woman.  
  
Why would I turn a prince into a hideous beast? In most cases the prince is doing quite well on his own and doesn't need evil fairies.  
  
As far as that story's concerned, I suspect Dewdrop, and in this case she certainly did well. But anyway, I've been getting sidetracked, so one last little post script and I'm done.  
  
When I returned to my grove, the FGU was battling it out over something. I'd long since become bored of their various ramblings, so I wasn't particularly interested until I heard familiar names.  
  
"We'll crush Andir to the ground!" Fairy Mandrake insisted loudly. "We'll destroy..."  
  
"Oh no you won't," I said. "Leave Andir alone."  
  
"Fairy Ashtree," Dewdrop said. "If you wish to take part in these meetings, at least arrive on time. We have just discovered that for the past eighty years Andir has constantly missed us off its guest list. Wizards, oracles, wise women, gnomes, even that crow of yours have been invited to coronations, christenings, funerals, weddings and but we have not. We are just thinking of how to exact revenge. We would have like for you to arrive earlier so you can give us some advice from your obviously wide extending experience." I think that was a slight dig at the Bluebell affair.  
  
"You can't have any, Dewdrop. Andir doesn't need fairy blessing. The royal family is of partly fairy origin."  
  
"Oh yes?" Dewdrop asked coldly. Her eyes bore into me.  
  
"I, er, kind of married King Hawkus shortly after Bluebell's sixteenth. We naturally had children, who did not need fairy godmothers. And personally I believe that it wasn't your sort of place, our court at Andir."  
  
Mandrake stared at me, narrowing his eyes. I was all for fairy godfathers, but I had my doubts about this one.  
  
"You married a mortal?"  
  
"That explains why those princes are constantly turning into swans," Heartthrob said.  
  
"Let me get this straight," Dewdrop said. "You married King Hawkus, and never told us."  
  
"That's right."  
  
"And you never invited us to the wedding or the christenings of your children."  
  
"No."  
  
Dewdrop smiled a rare smile. It was rare for two reasons – firstly, she hardly ever smiles, and secondly, there was just the right amount of malice sealing those two lips.  
  
"I think I know who we should be exacting revenge on," she said.  
  
Seeing uniform smiles on all the other godparents, I didn't stay around.  
  
YE OLDE END  
  
And there it is… not the best of stories but at least it's something to read :) 


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